Best-in-Class Workforce Management Software from Industry Experts
Header

Automation Has Many Benefits But A Proper Implementation Plan Should Not Be Ignored

February 13th, 2023 | Posted by ATS in Artificial Intelligence | ATS TimeWork OnDemand | Biometric FaceScan | Biometric Time and Attendance Facial Recognition System | Cloud Computing | Employee Productivity | Fingerprint Time And Attendance Canada | Fingerprint Time And Attendance Toronto | HR | Human Capital Management (HCM) | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Automation Has Many Benefits But A Proper Implementation Plan Should Not Be Ignored)

Many of ATS monthly blogs deals with the tangible benefits of automation, while at the same time, espousing the economic advantages of deploying, a Human Capital Management (HCM) solution. Those sentiments are reiterated in a published article, titled 10 Automation Mistake to Avoid by Laurence Goasduff for Gartner. Additionally, the article provides potential pitfalls to avoid, when automating business processes.

Here are the 10 mistakes to avoid based on a recent Gartner survey:

  1. Falling in love with a single technology: Once an organization has purchased and implemented a specific process automation tool, such as robotic process automation (RPA), successfully, it’s natural that colleagues want to adopt it more widely. “However, the wrong approach is to drive automation from a single technology perspective. Instead, lead with the business outcome and then align the correct set of tools,” says Sturgill.

2. Believing that business can automate without IT: More and more business users believe that the adoption of RPA and low-code/no-code applications don’t require the assistance of IT. But business users may lack knowledge of how customer and data records work, for example, and there’s a risk of mishandling the information. Additionally, those applications are integrated with other systems, which require regular upgrades. When the IT team isn’t involved, changes during upgrades don’t pass through, causing failed processes.

3. Thinking automation is always the solution: Automation may be the best long-term option for business and IT processes, but leaders cannot simply use it to cover gaps in a poorly designed process. Automation is not meant to make up for failures in systems or defer system replacement; using automation in that way simply extends the life of suboptimal legacy applications by creating savings that mask underlying inefficiencies.

4. Not engaging all stakeholders: Automation, by nature, has a broad impact on the enterprise, which means you should engage stakeholders from across the organization for decision making and sign off. For example, if adoption of new automation processes changes the nature of people’s roles, involve HR; changes to access rights and IDs, or server requirements must involve security or IT. 

5. Failing to devote enough time to testing: Automation technologies only work when the algorithms and rules are exactly correct. The technologies may seem easy to use, but they are unforgiving when programmed incorrectly. They can very quickly wreck business data and fail to deliver the desired business outcome. 

6. Wasting effort on overly complicated processes: At times, organizations find themselves in a quagmire when automating a process. That most often happens when processes are not well-documented or understood, if the workflow is not consistent or if there are too many variants in the decision-making process. Don’t waste time and effort by failing to halt such processes promptly. 

7. Treating automation as simple task replication: Using automation tools to copy exactly what is being done manually misses a critical benefit of automation — improving the end-to-end process to create a better customer and employee experience. If process redesign is not part of the automation process, you may use the wrong automation tool and lose the business outcome you hope to achieve.

8. Failing to monitor in postproduction: Just like any system implementation, automation projects will require extensive “hands-on” IT involvement after implementation. For example, for RPA rollouts, establish continuous assessment, monitoring and regular quality checks to ensure that robots have been scripted correctly and are continuing to work as expected. This avoids huge data cleanup tasks. 

9. Using the wrong metrics to measure success: It’s typical to measure technology applications and tools to ensure that they are working as designed. However, this doesn’t reflect whether or not the project is successful. Measuring the impact on processes and the enterprise as a whole is key to the success of automation. 

10. Ignoring the culture and employee impact: While it’s critical to focus on how to adopt and scale automation, it is equally important to consider the impact on employees, especially if roles are eliminated or reimagined. 

Bottomline: Involve all parties who will be impacted by the deployment of the HCM solution, in particular non-management staff. And never settle for a solution that may not work for your organization. When exploring HCM solutions beware of the one-size-fit-all approach. If the vendor does not know the challenges you face regularly, you could add time and money to your deployment, while at the same time, negatively impacting the overall results of the solution. Choosing an HCM vendor with deep industry expertise will lead to greater efficiency and better user experiences.

To request additional information, learn more about ATS, or to download a demo, go to our website. To reach an account executive by phone, call; 866-294-2467.

, , ,

Is Conflict Ruining Your Team’s Cohesion? Here Are Some Tips On How To Handle It

October 24th, 2018 | Posted by ATS in Careers | HR | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Is Conflict Ruining Your Team’s Cohesion? Here Are Some Tips On How To Handle It)

Employee conflict occurs on every team, whether it’s in little league baseball or in your professional work settings. How the leader of the team, handles conflict can either make or break the cohesion of the team— moreover, no one benefits when these conflicts are ignored—not the employees or managers.

Is Conflict Ruining Your Team’s Cohesion? Here Are Some Tips On How To Handle It

Here are some tips on how to handle conflict from an article titled 4 ways to harness the power of conflict in your team from HR Grapevine:

  1. Be explicit about the value conflict can bring: As a team leader, subtly trying to influence the level of conflict in your team won’t work. You need to be explicit in your expectations and why a degree of conflict is needed and valuable for performance. Make it clear that differences of opinion within the team are both inevitable and useful. As a leader, state how you expect people to share their opinions, especially when they differ from the group, as this may help uncover assumptions, enlarge the pool of available information and shine a light on what matters most to those involved in certain tasks. Left buried, these differing opinions can derail a team; aired openly for consideration, the team can use put the insight to good use.
  1. Back conflict ideals with role modeling: It’s no use asking people to share their opinions and reacting negatively or defensively when they do. Remember the positive intent that’s often at the core of conflict; when someone is bold enough to share a controversial opinion it often reflects a deep level of care and passion for what they do. As a leader, listen for what it is a team member is protecting or trying to improve. Aim to explore and understand, rather than resolve and answer.

 

  1. Invest time upfront co-creating and establishing the team ground-rules: It’s common for a team to spend time clarifying its purpose but much rarer for a team to invest time explicitly discussing how people will work together and provide constructive challenge to the group. Contracting this in advance creates positive expectations and lays the foundations for building trust and clear communication. Alongside explicitly stating the value of conflict, spark a team discussion around: what would it take for people to feel able to speak without censorship? How can we disagree with each other whilst always ensuring people feel respected?
  1. Pre-empt relationship conflict with personality insight: Inevitably team members will have different values and styles in the way they interact with others at work. The more self-awareness and understanding team members have of each other’s preferences and how these may differ from their own, the less likely team members will be caught off guard or misinterpret someone’s style or approach. This insight helps stimulate and structure discussion around some of the personal differences it’s easy to overlook as a team.

Bottom-line: Understanding the reasons behind workplace conflicts can help managers tackle problems before—or after—a conflict turns into a face-off between departments that refuse to work together or a screaming match between colleagues.

, ,

Remote Workforce And The Rules Of Engagement

October 18th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Cloud Computing | Telecommuting Employees | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Remote Workforce And The Rules Of Engagement)

For many companies the notion of a remote workforce is inconceivable and it is something they would not entertain, regardless of changes in the working world. They have been doing the same thing for many years and see no reason to change. On the flipside there are some companies who may choose to incorporate a remote workforce to complement their standard operations, For example, you may decide that your technical support reps and sales personnel adds costs by driving each day to sit at a desk. And for some of the businesses, who have a rigid policy against employees working from home, will need to have some sort of work from home contingency plan in place when their employees are not able to travel due to bad weather conditions.

Setting a remote workforce has its pros and cons and, like every business model, considerable thought should be given to it before its implementation. Here are three tips to consider, courtesy of an article by Bartie Scott for Inc.com titled “3 Tips for Keeping Flexible Workers Happy and Productive”

  1. Balance fixed pay with performance incentives
    To prevent paying full freight for a flexibly-located or -scheduled employee who winds up as a resource drain, base some pay on productivity benchmarks. Holmstrom’s work implies that it’s best to set aside a portion of an employee’s potential pay for a time when his or her performance can be better evaluated. Good performance is a win-win, and bad performance means that allowance can be put back into the company.
  2. Measure performance against peers
    Besides breeding some healthy competition, comparing performance to peers better accounts for factors beyond your employees’ control and avoids punishing them for broader market downturns. Instead, if workers are given the same resources and training, individuals’ abilities will be revealed over time. High-risk industries that can’t afford employee churn and uncertain costs should provide more fixed compensation. Lower-risk industries can afford to try out offering performance incentives on new employees to reward the best and weed out those who can’t cut it.
  3. Leave room for uncertainty
    Hart’s incomplete-contract theory states that because performance is difficult to predict and unexpected events arise, contracts must lay out a method for decision-making in case of unforeseen circumstances. That’s why it may be pertinent to negotiate with a new hire to revisit bonuses or benefits after some time has passed and the employment arrangement is more predictable.

Here is a quote from Marten Mickos CEO of Eucalyptus Systems in a recent interview “Offices are so last century,” Having everyone in one location “was really an invention of the Industrial Revolution. It’s much more natural for people to work where they live.” He goes on to say, “We have a few employees I have never actually met.”  And, when asked how he knows they’re all working, he says “telecommuting can actually boost productivity, it’s much easier to fake it in an office than it is from home, where the only way to seem productive is to actually be productive.”

Bottom-line a remote workforce is not ideal for every company. However, the companies that implement telecommuting, the rules of engagement need to be clear so, both sides understands and adheres to the stated objectives. It’s also worth noting that not every employee is cut out to be a telecommuter. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline-hence, some employees; love the idea of driving to work each day to work at a desk in an office.

About ATS:
ATS offers a broad portfolio of time and attendance solutions that streamlines the collection, calculation, and reporting of employee hours for workforce management. ATS time and attendance solution eliminates the manual tasks of payroll preparation, thus- increasing efficiency and reducing errors in corporate HR and payroll departments.

To learn more, call 866.294.2467. And to view a demonstration or attend a weekly webinar go to our website.

Remote Workforce And The Rules Of Engagement

, ,